Tom Ammiano is profiled in today’s Chron in a piece that talks about his move to the center as campaign tactic.
Meanwhile, The Ex engages in a little flat-out Gavin Newsom bashing as Adriel Hampton channels the Three Dot King, Herb Caen.
Hampton’s caught a common occurrence. When Newsom doesn’t show — or leaves early — at a community mayoral forum his competitors lay the insults and little jabs on one after the other. When he’s there, they couldn’t be nicer to him.
“You’ve noticed that, too?” asks Libertarian candidate Michael Denny, the only guy who is — proudly — running to Newsom’s right.
It’s odd and, frankly, it makes the non-Newsom Left, seem less high-minded than they’d like to think. Of course, community mayoral forums are catch-as-catch-can affairs. There’s no getting around that. Both the campaigns and community organizations rely almost entirely on volunteers. But it would be nice if candidates could stop arguing about who’s showing up, who was invited, who was left out and whether it was deliberate, and focus on what most of the people in their audience want to hear about, their plans, their hopes and their goals for the city. It might even boost attendance at these things.
Part of the problem is that there are simply too many forums for all the candidates to make all the time. This hurts every one and it creates a side show – did he show? Was she invited? What was the scheduling conflict? — that detracts from what should be the business at hand.
“It would be much better to have two or three really solid mayoral discussions,” says Denny.